


we lost it all (we found everything new)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, andrew knows what's up, these two orphan babes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:49:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks they sleep. He thinks Jemma checks on him. He thinks Andrew visits. He knows Skye never leaves.</p><p> </p><p>Post-season 2 finale. Coulson and Skye grieve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we lost it all (we found everything new)

When they get back to base, Simmons doesn't put him in the infirmary. The lab's still trashed and Bobbi's worse off than he is.

"You're actually very lucky, sir," Simmons says, examining his - _stump_. "It looks as if GH-325 is still active in your system and it's healing you _much_ faster than normal, there's evidence of the same advanced cellular regeneration already. Without it I doubt you would have survived."

Coulson doesn't feel lucky.

Jemma sets him up in his own bed, in the end, surrounding him with a heart monitor and his arm in traction and other equipment she's been able to salvage, a morphine drip beside him. Skye watches, silently, still in her tactical gear, ignoring the bruises on her own face.

When Simmons leaves, Skye closes the door after her, makes no move to leave. Coulson's feeling pretty groggy, but he knows what happened on the ship, caught enough of Skye's terse explanations on the flight back to the Playground. He knows that losing would mean they're all dead, but he doesn't exactly feel like they've won, right now.

Skye closes the blinds, leaves the room in half-darkness, crosses to stand by his bed. Then she's taking off her jacket, pulling off her boots, matter-of-factly stripping down until she's just in a singlet and underwear. Coulson's vaguely, druggedly surprised the heart monitor doesn't betray him when he sees the smooth skin of her bare thighs gleaming in the grey light. He feels the bed dip under her weight, shifts over a little automatically to give her space. She crawls under the covers, lies on her side facing him, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her eyes are open and her face is very still.

"I thought you were dead," she whispers. "I saw Mack and Fitz and all the blood, and I thought you were dead." He tries to reach for her with his uninjured arm, but the drip won't pull that far and all his limbs feel so heavy. He looks at her, instead, and she reaches out for him, lays her palm on his chest over his scar over his heart. He can feel her hand, very warm. He wonders if this is a morphine hallucination, or some new side-effect of Terrigen crystals, but he can hear her breathing, loud in the quiet of the room, and everything is very soft. His arm doesn't hurt at all.

He thinks they sleep. He thinks Jemma checks on him. He thinks Andrew visits. He knows Skye never leaves.

 

+

 

They stay in bed for days. Simmons changes his bandages, takes his arm out of traction, bullies Skye into a shower and him into embarrassingly terrible sponge baths, bullies them both into eating at odd intervals. Nobody else says a word, not even Andrew, not even May (not even Coulson's own conscience). Coulson guesses that when you've lost what they've lost, the normal rules don't apply, and anyway, it's not like he's in a position to take advantage.

The GH-325 is definitely having an effect, and Coulson doesn't know how to feel about that, so he doesn't. By day three, he's off the morphine and his arm ( _stump_ ) looks like it's been healing for weeks. 

By day three, though, Skye's still sleeping in his bed, except that 'sleeping' means she's having nightmares again, which means rattling windows and Skye jerking awake and shadows deepening under her eyes. Coulson knows he should do something, say something. He waits it out. He's going nowhere.

It's three in the morning and he can tell they're both awake. Her nightmare earthquakes are small, nothing more than the bed vibrating and his stupid collection trembling on their shelves, and he supposes that's a good sign, that she's still got this control. He doesn't know. He doesn't think she's directing it inward, like she was. He doesn't know.

"Coulson," she says, in the silence of the dark, "what was it like, when your mom died?" Her voice is very small.

He doesn't answer, immediately, turns his head toward her. He thinks, for a long time. _  
_

"Sudden," he says, in the end. "It didn't feel real. Felt like a bad fever dream I'd wake up from. I was young, when she died, and it was so sudden. One day she was fine, happy, playing golf at the rest home, and the next moment she was gone." She's silent for a long time.

"Did you cry, Coulson? At her funeral?"

"Not the funeral but... afterwards, at the wake, I realised it wasn't going away. Then I drank a lot of whisky, and yeah. I cried on my SO's shoulder. It hurt. It hurts." His eyes have adjusted to the dark; he can see Skye, on her side and facing him, a hand tucked under her cheek. She reaches out with the other, very lightly touches his injured arm, just below the elbow.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah," he admits. "Yeah, it hurts." She moves her hand away from his arm, touches his face just as lightly. He's surprised to realise his face is wet with tears.

"My mom's dead, Coulson."

"I know," he says, and it feels inadequate.

"My mom's dead... Cal, she, she was, she's  _dead_. I found her so late, and now I've lost her again. It hurts, Coulson, it  _hurts._ " Skye's voice breaks, and without thinking Coulson reaches out for her, pulls her into his chest, cradles her in one arm. She weeps, quietly, and the bed shakes with her sobbing and her little earthquake vibrations. He murmurs useless words into the dark. His ghost hand itches with the need to stroke her hair, hold her close, and he realises he's grieving for what he's lost, too.

 

+

 

When he wakes, the next morning, Skye is still nestled against him, one leg flung up and across his own calf and thigh. He can feel her skin warm through the thin cotton of his pyjamas. He's suddenly hyper-aware of the curve of her breasts, pressed against his ribs, and all of a sudden this feels like a terrible idea.

She stirs, against him, wraps her arms closer around his chest. Her breath is hot on his neck. He lies very still, thankful the heart monitor has been rolled back to the lab.

Skye slides a hand down his torso, across his stomach, slips her fingers under the hem of his t-shirt. He gasps, can't help it, shifts to look down at her.

"Skye..."

"Sir," she says, and her tone is the kind of playful Coulson hasn't heard in too long. 

"This... I don't, you-"

"Oh," she says, much quieter, and pulls her hand away. "Sorry, I shouldn't have... it was stupid." Coulson reaches out to still her, curses when he remembers his good arm is around her. Moves his hand _(not his hand, remember, he's lost his hand)_  up, instead, and as-gently-as-possible nudges her chin up so she's looking at him. It still hurts; it hasn't healed that fast.

"Don't do this out of grief, or pity, or feelings you want to distract yourself from," he says. "It's not fair." Her eyes widen.

"You think it's grief?  _Pity_? Fuck, Coulson. Let me do this because you didn't die. Because you're  _here_. Because we're alive and we have this and we have each other and that's _enough_. Let me do this because  _I'm crazy in love with you._ "  _  
_

Coulson feels like it might be a morphine hallucination again, because Skye's just told him she's in love with him and that doesn't _happen_ to him, except that he can still feel her warm and real and alive against him, and fuck it, he's done with loss and with grief and with pity (yeah, for himself) at least for now. He's going to live.

They're going to live.

He kisses her, the way he wanted to kiss her when he saw her in that hallway, the way he wanted to kiss her when he left her at the cabin, the way he wanted to kiss her when she walked onto his plane for the first time all shiny hair and smirking banter, and the surprised little noise she makes is beautiful, so he kisses her again, and lets her kiss him back.

She laughs into his mouth, and he pulls back enough to ask. "What?"

"Am I the first person you've kissed since you died?"

"Yes," he admits. "But not bad, right, for a dead guy with one arm." She snorts, and kisses him again, and he can feel the vibrations she's creating hum under his skin with life and hope and future. 

_we died (we came back) (we found each other)_


End file.
